NPCs reporting who killed them

If it's no bug or an idea, but it's still MUD-related, it goes here.

Moderator: Wizards

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Desiderea
Master
Posts: 221
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:59 pm

NPCs reporting who killed them

#1 Post by Desiderea » Mon May 31, 2010 11:10 pm

I'd suggest removing this, as it gives the "goodies" too much of an advantage and makes it impossible to do things surreptitiously. It makes sense for NPCs to report who attacked them if they weren't killed, but to have them able to report "from the grave" seems a bit much. A logical method of hiding your nefarious acts would be to kill any witnesses, but when the witnesses can still report you, it makes it rather pointless. You would just be incriminating yourself further. And so really the only way to hide your acts would be to do them disguised.

User avatar
arxthas
Hero
Posts: 292
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:49 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#2 Post by arxthas » Tue Jun 01, 2010 4:37 am

The reports were added just because it was too easy to kill people. So I completely disagree with that. It's like an obvious trade-off to me.

Maybe the most realistic would be if these dummy-targets were moved inside the gates to be protected by guards. It seems unreal that anyone would even consider to live alone in a hut in the forest.. city walls and guards are there for a reason. Especially if they were once attacked, they should never return. IMHO if this is a problem, the most "real" is that nobody would even try to live outside city gates. Especially not the in the Geas setting with death priests walking around.. that word should be out hundreds of years ago..

isengoo
Champion
Posts: 828
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:38 pm

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#3 Post by isengoo » Tue Jun 01, 2010 4:53 am

What's so bad about NPCs dying? Isn't that what the whole game is? Goblins die, orcs die, ogres die, etc. They don't tell you who killed them.

User avatar
arxthas
Hero
Posts: 292
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:49 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#4 Post by arxthas » Tue Jun 01, 2010 6:25 am

There's nothing bad about NPC's dying... like you said, it's a part of the game (although not the "whole"). What Desi said was that it's unreal they report their death. I countered by saying that it's unreal that they're out there at all, so it's really just a "planned" trade-off.

isengoo
Champion
Posts: 828
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:38 pm

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#5 Post by isengoo » Tue Jun 01, 2010 7:05 pm

Yeah but still. They respawn out there (like the patrols) and the world keeps on keepin on. It's still silly to me that anyone is able to report who killed them.

lanyara
Overlord
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:06 am

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#6 Post by lanyara » Tue Jun 01, 2010 7:12 pm

And so really the only way to hide your acts would be to do them disguised.
Not even this will truly work as your karma would reveal your actions. And then they have all the right to force those with bad karma to become good, or engage (even if it is non-PvP engaging, from an IC point of view it absolutely makes sense)

What I dislike about the reporting by NPCs is that it seems artificial.

Something like:

"The masked human?"
"Twenty attacks are known."
"Last attack happened on [precise time]"

I don't know how you view this, but to me this seems more like a joint flawless AI, than a NPC with flaws who is supposed to make mistakes too. Does every NPC really know all the attacks having happened by anyone, including the precise date time and description? Do they train this somewhere on the marketplaces or what ...

In all fairness to PO Desiderea though, and I actually support the idea, but we also need to remember invisible NPCs who can report too.

That's how the reputation system works (and I personally like the reputation system a lot, even though I think it could be improved a little bit)

So at least for NPCs who are in the open (i.e. not in a hut), their deaths could be reported by other NPCs, even if that NPC dies.

For closed locations though, like a small hut, I would 100% agree with @Desiderea. If you go and kill that NPC, there should be 0 report of that.

Having this action affect your karma is already bad enough.

The overall bigger problem is that the game really has polarized a lot, and it is much harder to be evil. The rewards to be a weak evil are pretty non-existant right now. Who goes and be a weak Lilithian openly? For what gain? I couldn't tell ... :)

What I would suggest about the report system would be this:
- NPCs that die in closed environments (like a hut) aren't reported at all
- NPCs that are killed in the open are not always reported.. it should be a % chance... perhaps, in front of the city halls of Arborea, the base chance could be like 95%... rather than 100%. Would still be a bit better... no idea if it is that way or not, it seems 100% right now.
- remove the exact time of an attack. At least not for every NPC.

If anything, then a NPC in the townhall could give more details, but definitely not the fisherman somewhere else who wants to catch fish, rather than knowing that this or that masked human attacked at precisely this time, and knows about exactly so or so many kills.

Anyway, just my opinion here.

PS: Though as said ... I wouldn't mind if the game would become more accessible for evil characters again.
Best race: halflings.

adanath
Champion
Posts: 505
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:36 am
Location: Lynchburg, VA

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#7 Post by adanath » Wed Jun 02, 2010 10:49 am

First of all, it doesn't help that much.
Second of all, they aren't exact with their time frame.
Third of all, if they come back, why shouldn't they remember who killed them. I would assume just like pc's that many of these npc's (theoretically) ressurect. They are the same entity, many times goblins and orcs may just be more and more spawning out and out again..with exceptions like Buncha and other specific ones. Adanath remembers what killed him last. Why wouldn't Kuzann? Why wouldn't Crystalbrook? I don't understand where you guys are coming from at all on this. If anything some evil chars should report the same things, and some evil NPC's do. If you kill an NPC like Kuzann, why in the heck wouldn't he remember oh that jackass killed me, then I had to get a new body and you know what that jackass came back and killed me again two weeks later.

ferranifer
Champion
Posts: 533
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:16 am
Location: Europe CET

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#8 Post by ferranifer » Mon Jul 12, 2010 9:22 pm

Did you read Desi's post fully? The reason for asking for a change on this game mechanic has nothing to do with the rules of reality or the fidelity of the game to anything real. So what if NPCs behave differently than players. Do you want all ogres/orcs/giants/goblins/whatnot to stop respawning because you actually did eradicate them from the planet once and for all? Please.

It's a freaking game. Cut some slack to those trying to play something else than the archetypical champion-of-the-light or the leave-me-alone-im-neutral-today character. The game is absolutely saturated with ancillary evil detection and evil deterrence mechanics. It's surreal how the whole world is practically littered with chastity belts and mine fields.

lanyara
Overlord
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:06 am

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#9 Post by lanyara » Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:28 pm

@Adanath I don't think that works as easily. The way how it feels is a general report mechanism used and shared by all the NPCs within an area.

If a character kills the same NPC 1000 times, that NPC will remember every attack with the precise time ICly, the total amount of attacks, how the attacker looked - and this all in addition to anyone else attacking him.

And this, all known to every other NPC in that area as well.

NPCs today must have a monster brain.

Perhaps NPCs today don't really need PCs at all - they could establish a system where NPCs come to help them ... ;)

To me this code part seems more like a game feature. It works as a deterrent against a specific action - kill NPCs. But we have other deterrents too. I can see that it has become harder to be evil in general.

Has it become more fun to go evil? For very few perhaps. But I think for most, it surely hasn't.

The game feature (reporting NPCs) doesn't help the NPC in question because he will probably have died. But it can be used by good player characters as a tool against any other playercharacter who did precisely so.

Would we really want to have game additions that make it harder and harder to be evil? Sneaky evil isn't really possible. Where are the thieves?

That more or less leaves the powergaming evil concepts. It may work for others, I personally find that extremely boring.

We would be left with perfect and flawless medieval societies in the game. We have the karma concept as well - not only will the reputation system work against you, the NPCs will report you, the karma will affect you. Is this all really needed?

A game should be sufficiently open to allow players to participate in it, otherwise some character concepts just aren't there anymore, and this can not really be beneficial for the evolution of a game.

You may still have players playing, but surely most would just be good or neutral. And I don't even agree with this grouping of characters into good/neutral/evil at all ... it is really an OOC concept.
Best race: halflings.

User avatar
caelia
Professional
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:14 am

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#10 Post by caelia » Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:01 pm

lanyara wrote:You may still have players playing, but surely most would just be good or neutral. And I don't even agree with this grouping of characters into good/neutral/evil at all ... it is really an OOC concept.
I have no idea what could possibly be meant by this.

There is a coded idea of "good" in Geas (not so different from the real-world meaning of the word), and players are either more or less indifferent to it, they work to promote it, or they work to oppose it. Surely this works out to some meaningful IC idea of good/neutral/evil.

To give an example, I would say that the difference between a good character and a neutral character is that the good one cares far more about the death of a unicorn. The neutral character would probably find the situation too far removed from his sphere of concern, and there is some room to say "It's not my war." But when that same person's neighbors are dying off, this becomes much more difficult to say. I think this fits, and it would be perfectly in-character.


Since every second or third thread ends up in a discussion about this topic anyway...
The way I see it, there is letting the game be "open," and letting characters do whatever they jolly well please without consequences. In an RP-enforced MUD, I believe the latter is unacceptable. Since most evils will inevitably steal or murder, they're going to get even some neutrals hopping mad at them, and this tends to inhibit the exchange of social niceties and peaceful business transactions.

In the history of the real world, it happened often enough that career criminals would die in jail, die penniless in the middle of nowhere, or become part of some reasonably-functioning outlaw community. (From what I hear of Asador, it is more like the second than the third). But in general, actual outlaws function by building their own economies, (i.e., black markets) where there are more free to conduct business without unwanted scrutiny. In Geas terms, if the evil side lacks access to certain things then I think that analogues have to be added for them, rather than expecting good and evil characters to coexist in the same areas as if there are no real and irreconcilable differences between them, or there isn't a long history of bloodshed. Otherwise nothing changes; evils will have to resort to lying about their purposes, and goodies can only respond by assuming that they're lying about their purposes.


But trying to get back on topic, the information that NPCs give about attacks is useful, but hardly a game-changer. It tells me where Caelia's enemies have been, not where they are or where they're going.

The arguments against it appear to be that it's unrealistic (which @Arxthas already addressed - and I would add that it is coherent, and coherence is probably more important than realism) - and that it is unfair.

To those of you who think that the feature is unfair, would you also insist that it also be removed from evil NPCs? These are fewer and tend to be left alone anyway, but remember that this sword has two edges. :wink:

lanyara
Overlord
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:06 am

Re: NPCs reporting who killed them

#11 Post by lanyara » Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:26 pm

To clarify:

My statement towards good/neutral/evil in general is that it is in essence an OOC concept from my point of view. I don't see anyone roleplaying an evil character ICly saying "hey, I am an evil person because I worship an evil deity".
How could the god I ICly worship be evil? I would like to think of my god as something wonderful, even if he wants of me to kill everyone else. (But even then I'd rather like to think of my god to want to find new followers. In Geas, the gods seem to work somewhat differently)
Surely this works out to some meaningful IC idea of good/neutral/evil.
If one likes to think in cliches, perhaps. Here an example of a character concept:

One could try to promote good, and be good, yet still not care about unicorns.
Would this be a neutral character or still a good character in such a classification scheme? Or evil? They wouldn't necessarily have to kill unicorns, but they could be completely indifferent if unicorns die. Could this still be a good character?

Another character concept - one that wants to not worship ANY deity, but wants to bring peace and happiness to the world. I think most would tend to think of this character as a good character. But what if such a character concept would also steal from the rich, could he still be a good character? In my opinion yes. I am sure others will disagree.
And the system will definitely want to have this character end with black karma, which kind of makes this character an evil person.

In Geas, the concept of good/neutral/evil is more defined with the karma system. Black aura guys are evil, good aura guys are good. That's a very simple concept.

A character associating with an evil deity today is so extremely evil that noone has to philosophically dispute about it at all, because the system itself will treat this character to be at the evil side of the spectrum. These worshippers of evil deities are now as a result extremely scary. The good people should be outright scared to have anyone being so evil among them at all! Noone would want to have conversations with Jack The Ripper characters today, except for mostly two ways I can see here:

- to be afraid of him
- or to want to kill him

Conversations would more or less center around these two extremes, within reason. At least, when this would be really a psychopath, because you could not and would not want to trust a psychopath who would constantly be lying about everything. :)

Hardly anyone would want to try to call this guy a friend.

Keeping bad company makes you a worse person too as a result.
In Geas terms, if the evil side lacks access to certain things then I think that analogues have to be added for them, rather than expecting good and evil characters to coexist in the same areas as if there are no real and irreconcilable differences between them, or there isn't a long history of bloodshed.
In an extremely polarized world, sure. They now wanna kill the goodies, and the goodies wanna kill the baddies. Ok, it has been that way in the past too. :)
But you could also talk with some evil folks other than think "boy, soon I am going to be PKed" and they could also at least try to do something else other than "hmm, where do I find a new victim now".

I'd also say that there was less frustration and less PvP.

But I agree that they would require to have access to sufficient game features without feeling to be "forgotten". @Jezz wrote some excellent notes about this.
evils will have to resort to lying about their purposes, and goodies can only respond by assuming that they're lying about their purposes.
Goodies can not lie? :) In Geas perhaps not. All knowing gods know who is lying and who is not! :P
the information that NPCs give about attacks is useful, but hardly a game-changer
For the high end PvP characters probably no.

For the weak characters, the lesser evil, who want to go and perhaps consider helping the evil side - it definitely is. Bye bye recruitment base for the evil characters.

Hopefully noone gets me wrong here - I know that the evil side would be extremely appealing if there would be no more consequence for doing anything they want to. If the evil characters could freely kill everything, and noone would *want* to stop them at all, then it would be just as bad as it is right now for the evil characters.

But not everyone who WANTS to roleplay an "evil character" WANTS to enter non-stop PvP or WANTS to powertrain up.

When one looks at code changes, there are more and less important changes.
It would be bad if players would only complain about "game-changer" changes of the code.

One should however look at the overall picture of the code changes. There seems to be more polarization, a larger requirement on powertraining in general due to performance in PvP, and less freedom to roleplay however you feel it were to be fitting to the personality of your character. I am sure some will disagree, but this is my feeling so far.
It tells me where Caelia's enemies have been, not where they are or where they're going.
They report for everyone and they never forget. :)
Makes it not really possible to conceal your actions at all. There can not be any successul assassin today. Bye bye ninjas!
The arguments against it appear to be that it's unrealistic (which @Arxthas already addressed - and I would add that it is coherent, and coherence is probably more important than realism) - and that it is unfair.
I don't agree that it is realistic. To me it feels like a game feature. I would like to hear a good IC explanation how every NPC is able to report on every other NPC with all the information presented.

Another strange thing asking a NPC about attackers:
The sinister inquisitive female dwarf?
Is known as Mona to you.
I wonder if the NPC is a mind reader or how else can the NPC know that this attacker is known to my character as Mona ... :)
To those of you who think that the feature is unfair, would you also insist that it also be removed from evil NPCs? These are fewer and tend to be left alone anyway, but remember that this sword has two edges.
If I would have a say in this matter at all, I think I would do these changes:

First, the reporting system should change to a way that it makes IC sense. No more NPCs being able to report accurately and flawlessy 100% of the time who attacked when, where, without giving any IC explanation for this behaviour.

I think if NPCs are attacked, and want to enjoy the reporting system as protection, there should be a way for them to report *somewhere*, i.e. townhalls or some place at the court. Then the attacks and the track records can be kept in a central place. It would be updated perhaps every day or some such, but not instantly. This way, one could try to kill as many NPCs as possible without being reported too quickly. Or, while he is killing NPCs actively, some reporting guy could run in, heavily panting, and report on what is happening right now. And the heroes can rush out to protect the NPCs. :D

As it works right now, I think is that you get instantly reported.

I would also change that NPCs are able to give EVERY other character this information.

A NPC would instead say something like:

"Hmm... I remember this Mona person attacking here before, but I don't recall more. If you want to find out more, please have a look at the town's council record."

I think that would be better. No more connected NPC super brain.

If you kill a NPC in a secluded place, like a hut, somewhere alone, and that NPC can not flee - then yes, you will not be reported at all anywhere as an attacker or murderer whatsoever. (Perhaps there should have to be a minimal chance that some random NPC could see this fight still, but a minimal chance would definitely be a huge change compared to the 100% reporting of today)

Now when you attack some NPC on the outside, on roads for example, then the reporting system should have a *chance* to kick in, and definitely a higher chance than one in secluded areas. The chance wouldn't be 100%, it would depend on a few factors, and I think would be an improve over the current system.

Group NPCs in non-secluded areas of course would have a close to 100% chance of reporting you. Other random NPCs would surely be alerted about that.

Ah, and NPCs far away who would get attacked, would eventually try to move away for some time.

One sad guy that comes to my mind is the gallows guy. He just stays there and waits to get killed without ever running away. Brave man but foolish.
Best race: halflings.

Post Reply